Why a good wrapped burger can make up for a BIG mistake…

So today I attended a Rotary Meeting/Lunch to listen to one of my exchange students give her 30 minute presentation. (I was a Rotary Exchange kid….have been an exchange sibling and host parent… and now I am the exchange kid “coordinator” (read trouble-shooter) at school.)

Her presentation was AWESOME.

My choices were NOT.

Seriously – I don’t know what happened to me. I walked through the buffet line and mindless filled my plate with fresh fruit and salad…. and then I somehow decided that I could eat the mashed potatoes (they were real potatoes) … and from there – all hell broke loose in my head. I put a piece of roast turkey on my plate. My brain was just thinking “Duh, we eat roast turkey and there is no gravy here it should be juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust fine.”

Whatever. I’m paying for my stupidity now. People have often asked us Celiac folks what it is like and if there is anything we can “take”‘ to feel better or not experience this. It’s been AGES since I’ve done anything this silly and I’m really feeling it now.

What do I feel like? Besides my frequent trips to privacy, this is what I feel like:

like I’ve suddenly gained an extra 100 pounds of sand that I must carry.

like my brain is foggy and fragmented.

like my eyes are going to pop out of my head.

like someone is jabbing a sword in to my side.

like my joints suddenly belong to an 85 year old woman and NOT me.

like God made stretchy sweat pants for moments like this….

And those are just a few… at least those are the ones that are coming to my scattered-brain at the moment. LOL

Just knowing that I have gluten-free goodness in my stomach is helping my brain feel better. I’m pretty upset with myself at the moment and feeling lousy physically is NOT a happy reminder of my poor choice.

I don’t think I’m the only one whose made a ridiculous mistake on this GF path.
I’m sure there are others out there who have slipped too … maybe you are not one of them… maybe you are. I simply know this to be true for me now:

Like this:

Comments

I really need to understand this. I’ve been diagnosed and gluten-free for 3 years now. I never had the hair-trigger symptoms I keep hearing about. I wouldn’t have known I had celiac if my doctor hadn’t biopsied me during a endoscopy for reflux.

I would eat turkey and mashed potatoes at most buffets. If there was minute amounts of gluten in them, I wouldn’t know. (Some people call me a silent celiac because of my few symptoms). I don’t want those immediate symptoms but my problem is, I can’t tell if I’m slowly poisoning myself.

My doctor insists I stick to a strict 100% gluten free diet. He says I can get lymphoma and a huge list of other nasties.

Tell me please, why should I suspect (or dream) roasted turkey would have gluten? I don’t want to be overly paranoid. How did the gluten get in the turkey or potatoes?

Excellent question, Gary. I think I will go back and edit my post to help with this too.

Yesterday at the buffet, I should have just eaten the fresh fruit and salad without any salad dressing. So I was starting off right and then I veered in to no-man’s land with the potatoes and turkey.

The turkey is most likely the source of my gluten-angst. Most restaurants (or even home cooks for that matter) dredge their roasts in flour and sear them in a pan before roasting them to “lock in the moisture”. After that, they are often covered with some type of au jus or sauce that may begin with a roux (butter/flour mix that helps gravies or pan juices thicken in to a nice sauce). While I didn’t *SEE* a thick gravy or sauce on the meat, there WAS a sauce and/or juices in the pan. Regardless, the knowledge of dredging the meat in flour SHOULD have STOPPED me…..but obviously, it didn’t.

As with the potatoes (and sometimes the meat), the seasonings used contain flour or wheat starch etc. It’s like the seasoning packets that people can buy at the grocery store. Most of those (practically all of them) are not allowed on the gluten-free diet for Celiac Sprue.

I know that feeling incredibly lousy for the next few day is – in a very twisted way – helpful. At least I know that I have consumed something I shouldn’t have. It does help keep me on the straight and narrow – but that is not really the reason why I stay on the gluten-free diet. Yes, I feel MUCH MUCH better. But moreover, I know I am not causing the type of damage your doctor describes to my body.

I hope this explanation helps a bit.
Thanks for the excellent question and point.
-Kate

You know I love you, but this did make me laugh out loud. We’ve all done the stupid “Oh this should be fine” and eat it. Off and on for the past two weeks I’ve had the bloating and brain fog. I’m not sure which is the lesser of the two evils. I think the brain fog is worse, as I just feel like a zombie. Like someone just gave me a Percoset and I’ve taken it, yet not sleeping…the haze.

I think we’ve ALL done this at some point, and for some of us who are still new to this (like me), it happens more than we care to admit.
And, you know what, these days are exactly the ones that stretchy pants were made for!Thanks for the encouraging words…. I wish I was at home in my stretchy pants as I type this… but NOPE.. .I’m at work in work clothes. Bah. LOL – Kate

Oh yes, I get so comfortable eating everything at home, that sometimes I forget and think, of course that is gluten free and grab it. I did it just last week and I have already forgotten what it was. I don’t get the brain fog, just the other symptoms. At least it was a calorie free lunch at that point! I made your quinoa crackers last night and cut them into little 1 inch squares and am so excited as they taste just like cheese nips. I just took your lavash bread out of the oven so I could make some wraps for our weekend road trip. Looks great! I love the idea of burger wraps as sometimes I get tired of a bunless burger.

I hear ya on the bunless burger thing. I think I actually prefer the wraps now. Since our buns are not the soft, pliable buns of gluten-days, I think the gluten-free ones can sometimes be TOO much bread for the burgers. Although I do have an aweomse hamburger bun recipe, the lavash wrap recipe is MUCH faster. And after all… isn’t that what a hamburger meal is supposed to be? FAST! – Kate

I forgot to mention that here in MI, the cherry capital of the world, we have a burger mix made locally in Cedar MI that is called Pleva lean (Pleva being the last name of the guy who created it) and it is a burger with tart cherries in it. Most schools use it now for their burgers in a effort to have healthier choices, so you are right on when you add those cherries. Plus, I am from a cherry farm and always like to see people using cherries!
Yes, GF bread is too bready and dense – so I will wrap it up next time!

Must have been a ‘Self – basting turkey’. Sounds brutal. Poor you! I got caught with with frozen store bought burger patties last week. Never again!

Your Lavash rocks! I’ve been eating it with scrambled eggs for breakfast and with salmon and cucumber dill dressing for lunch. Love it! Had a bit of a problem getting it thin enough, so it is hard to roll, but I’m sure that will eventually work out.

Made a killer pizza crust with teff, sorghum and garbanzo. It was so good, I think that combo might work in the molasses bread. What a great idea, putting cherries in your burger! That would be yum! I’ll put it on my list of amazing ideas to try!

Cherries in burgers are yummy! (I’m from Michigan too!) I actually like them best in Turkey burgers, but you may want to wait a while to try that…

I’ve been feeling awful for a week, and can’t for the life of me figure out why. I don’t have any official celiac diagnosis, but have been cutting wheat & gluten out wherever I knowingly can, due to dr.’s suggestions. From some of the symptoms that you’re describing, I’m wondering if maybe I’m more sensitive than I thought, and that I’m eating something that I shouldn’t. At least it gives me some other avenue of diagnosis to try.

I recently self-diagnosed myself, and my GI ordered the blood tests, but after he told me I’d have to eat bread or pasta everyday for 2 weeks, I didn’t get the test. I had a few minor episodes after peas, which was confusing until a British naturopath(sp?) told me damaged intestines might act up after harder-to-digest carbs, which included peas, but after my gut had healed more, I would probably tolerate them much better.

A little over a week ago I had many back-to-back episodes, and I finally figured out they were triggered by Quaker Rice Cakes, and proved it by not eating them, and the episodes cleared up.

I finally got my hubby into the GP, so I made an appointment for myself since I needed to follow up a borderline high A1C (3 month blood sugar average). Since not eating bread and pasta for almost 5 months (the first few months I thought I could tolerate small amounts, duh), my A1C is now 5.7, so I’m not even pre-diabetic anymore, yay.

After hearing about the gut-episodes story (including colonoscopy, ultrasound, and CT results), he wanted to order a celiac test, and even showed me his lab book that didn’t include mandatory gluten challenge. He said if the results were negative, we’d consider them a false negative, but if it was even the slightest bit positive, we’d know for sure. So I’ll find out the results after they send them off to wherever.

We share the weight-gain and needing stretch pants thing. One time I had weighed myself the day before an episode, then weighed myself mid-episode, and gained 4 lbs in one day. My gut feels like it has a hot lava rock in it, towards the lowest left area. I only recall one immune/sinuses/flu’ish feeling once the gut started calming down. No joint problems yet; I’ve only gotten arthritis once, after a flu, but it was before my gut episodes become severe.

Sorry to hear about your bad buffet experience. I have these horrible dreams about being out to eat and getting halfway through something like pasta or cake before realizing that I shouldn’t be eating it. Hope you feel better.

Those burgers sound great! I actually had blue cheese burgers the other night (no cherries though). I’ve discovered that Athenos brand blue cheese crumbles are gluten-free. I stuffed the blue cheese in the middle of the burger and then used your hamburger bun recipe. very tasty!

I poisoned myself A LOT when I first went GF. I was puzzled because my health wasn’t improving as fast as I expected. I even ate the cheese off the top of a pizza at bowling one night. WRONG! Thanks to you and other GF bloggers, I’m figuring it out and doing much better these days.

I found a cute Hello Kitty bento box and I just pack my lunch. Now that I’m feeling better every day, I dread the thought of three days of unnecessary pain. I’ve wasted enough time feeling sick. Too much!

I wish you a speedy recovery.

Can’t wait to try your sandwich wraps. My diet has been sandwich free for months. And I know I’ll need something to wrap bacon and tomatoes and basil in soon.

The same thing happened to us two weeks ago…..my husband and daughter have Celiac….and we thought we were being careful….but NOPE! Both of them were sick for a couple of days. It’s amazing how eating just a little bit of gluten inadvertently can make them so sick!

Im comforted by your story, sorry to say. My recent ‘slips’ had me kicking myself (HARD) Im a university student living on another island, havent been diagnosed but the fact that i lose weight when i eat GF products is evidence enough. But i told my parents and ill get tested when i get home. Thankfully i found a store which sells bread/pasta/flour/cereal/pizza crusts….the works, And and am also thankfull i can cook, or i might have starved lol

I just tried this for the first time. And using my favorite line from Julie and Julia….”Yum”. How do you come up with these ideas? This is the first bread I have made gluten free that was actually good. All my other attempts have been gummy messes. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I will bei trying more later. P